Life after: Alberta’s Canadian Idol finalists reflect on the impact of reality-TV’s, often fleeting, fame​on February 6, 2025 at 12:30 pm

In 2015, Theo Tams was working as a butcher in Toronto when someone recognized him.

Tams wasn’t in the witness protection program or anything, but being identified on that day was not a particularly comfortable experience. For those acquainted with his past, he was living a very different life than they would have expected.

In 2008, Tams – a kid from Coaldale, Alta., with a beautiful voice – bested the competition and became the sixth and final winner of Canadian Idol. The CBC declared him “possibly the best artist who has ever appeared on Idol.” He scored a record deal with Sony. He even cemented his place in TV history as the first openly gay Idol contestant after accidentally outing himself during a live broadcast in the early goings of Season 6.

Yet, seven years later, here he was mopping the floors of a little butcher shop.

“Someone came in and wanted to pick up this last-minute order,” says Tams, in an interview with Postmedia from his home in Toronto. “They recognized me. It was like ‘Oh my God … you’re Theo from Canadian Idol!’ How are things going?’ Before I could even answer, they looked at me with the mop and it was like, ‘I guess that says it all.’ ”

Tams insists his experience with Canadian Idol is not a sob story. After his win, he stayed in Toronto and, other than that brief period, has remained in the music business. He evolved as an artist and continues to put out music regularly. But briefly stepping away from music in 2015 and 2016 was hard. For those two years, Tams went back to school. He managed a restaurant. He became a butcher. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, of course, unless you are the pride of Coadale and under the watchful eyes of supporters who assumed you would become a pop star.

“I remember going in and handing in my resume and just carrying this weight of so much shame and embarrassment,” Tams says. “I felt like I had failed.”

In the years since, Tams overcame alcohol addiction, and self-doubt and reinvented himself musically. He is a successful singer-songwriter who continues to release music on his terms. He doesn’t regret his time on Idol but admits it’s complicated.

“It was such a transformative time in my life,” he says. “It was hard, too. I was young. I was 22. I’m from a town of 5,000 people. It really was just a lot of pressure and felt overwhelming at the time. There’s been a lot of personal growth since then.”

Compared to its American counterpart, Canadian Idol may pale in the star-making department. But it did last for six seasons from 2003 to 2008 and thrust many newbie Canadian singers into the glaring and bewildering spotlight of instant stardom. Most signed record deals and most toured. Of the six winners, three were from Alberta: Tams, Medicine Hat’s Kalan Porter and Calgary’s Melissa O’Neil. Other contestants from the province placed in the Top 3, including Calgary’s Billy Klippert in Season 1 and Drumheller’s Jaydee Bixby in Season 5. Postmedia attempted to track down as many as possible to see what became of them after their starry-eyed time in the spotlight. Some, like O’Neil and Tams, still have a public profile and publicists working for them. Bixby and Klippert were contacted through Facebook. Kalan Porter, on the other hand, seems to have disappeared from the public eye altogether. Attempts to track him down through social media and publicists didn’t work. Eventually, a publicist who was attempting to contact him on behalf of Postmedia concluded, “he isn’t in music anymore.”